


When I Call Will You Know My Story?

by DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee



Series: True Love or Something [40]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bookstores, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, M/M, Who lets these idiots adult, lost in a mall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-13 15:11:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18471505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee/pseuds/DeerstalkerDeathFrisbee
Summary: To: LanceOn a scale of one to tenHow bad would it beIf I lost Keith’s dad and Acxa in a mall?To: PidgeWhere in the mall?To: LanceBarnes and NobleTo: PidgeYeah, you’re never getting them backBetter start running





	When I Call Will You Know My Story?

**Author's Note:**

> I LIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!
> 
> THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE YOU LOVELY LOVELY PEOPLE
> 
> Haha, so I got into graduate school, yay! Buuut it turns out working a full time job, taking a grad school class, writing two original novels and occasionally eating food, speaking to other humans and sleeping IS SCHEDULING HELL. So that's how I accidentally took a three and half month hiatus from this series. It was completely unintentional, but life came up. *shrugs*  
> Still working on the original novel - it looks like it'll be split into a few original novellas and there will be *a lot* of new material added in in the name of narrative cohesion, so get pumped for that! 
> 
> The other original novel I'm working on is totally different, it's action/adventure/fantasy, features a young king, a lady inventor and her pirate wife, a teenage girl assassin, and lots of mayhem. We'll see what happens there. 
> 
> So sorry to fall off the face of the planet with no warning, I hope you enjoy this little fic~
> 
> Mild Content Warning, Acxa remembers an anecdote where her bio mom and her bio mom's then-boyfriend have a fight while drunk. It's non-graphic and there's no person-on person violence.

**When I Call Will You Know My Story?**

**To: Lance**

On a scale of one to ten

How bad would it be

If I lost Keith’s dad and Acxa in a mall?

**To: Pidge**

Where in the mall?

**To: Lance**

Barnes and Noble

**To: Pidge**

Yeah, you’re never getting them back

Better start running

**To: Lance**

I looked away for two seconds!

That’s not enough time to lose a 12 year old and a senior citizen!

**To: Pidge**

Dare you to call Jack a senior citizen

To his face

See what happens

**To: Lance**

Joke’s on you, he conned the waitress at the diner

Got a senior discount for himself

And kids prices for me and Acxa

It was beautiful

**To: Pidge**

Well you’d better find him, then

Because none of us are getting your grizzled ass free stuff

Especially if you lose our kid

**To: Lance**

To be fair this is a little your fault

A lot your fault

Yeah, this is all your fault

**To: Pidge**

YOU HAD ONE JOB

GET KEITH A B-DAY GIFT

LOSING MY FATHER IN LAW AND CHILD IN A MALL

NOT PART OF THE PLAN

**To: Lance**

Yeah, no, if u got YOUR husband a gift

BEFORE December

This would not have been an issue

**To: Pidge**

Stop dragging me and find my kid

…

            Acxa is pretty sure she’s died and gone to literary heaven. The bookstore is massive. There are multiple levels. You think you’ve seen all the books, but then there’s stairs that lead to _even more books._ She’s not sure how to process all this information. At some point her brain’s going to reach maximum capacity for wonder at it all and just…stop.

            “Jack,” she says solemnly, “I’m never leaving.”

            Her grandfather shoots her a skeptical look. “Pretty sure your parents might not like that.”

            “They can live here too.” She doesn’t pay attention to the word ‘parents’. She doesn’t want to overthink it too much. There’s a little part of her that’s afraid to push at the concept of a family for fear something will break.

            “I think you’re supposed to go to school.”

            Acxa shoots him a Look, “There’s a whole section devoted to passing the PSAT, SAT, and GED. I could study for the GRE and the LSAT if I really wanted to.”

            “You planning to go to law school, kid?”

            She rolls her eyes, “It’s the principle of the thing, Jack.”

            He snorts and ruffles her hair. “Let’s focus on the mission.”

            Acxa sighs. She was so distracted ogling the miles and miles of books she forgot all about The Mission. Which was kind of nice, seeing as she has no freaking _clue_ how to _complete_ The Mission.

            “Ugh, what does Keith even _like_?” she sighs.

            “Lance. You. The cats. Shiro,” Jack counts off on his fingers.

            “You think we could just gift-wrap Lance?”

            “You not volunteering?”

            “No way. That’d be creepy.”

            Jack actually chuckles at that. “Come on, let’s wander around. Maybe we’ll find something.”

…

**To: Pidge**

Find my kid yet?

**To: Lance**

I found a caramel frappe

No kid

**To: Pidge**

You don’t even like Starbucks

**To: Lance**

It’s better than the taste of failure

**To: Pidge**

KID FIRST

DECLICIOUS BEVERAGES SECOND

…

            Acxa’s not sure how they got to this point, but she’s standing the adult fantasy/sci-fi section videoing Jack arguing with a gang of acne-riddled college age hipsters about symbolism in Neil Gaiman’s _American Gods_ and it’s the best thing she’s ever seen.

            “Confinement is a vital compoment of  – ”

            “Oh my god, you’re taking such a narrow view – have you even _read_ any literary theory – ”

            “I can spout bullshit about Death of the Author all day, don’t make me right – ”

            “You have to – ”

            “Sometimes the curtains are just blue –”

            Acxa tries her best to hold the phone steady but it’s hard when she’s giggling like this, “Keith is gonna love this,” she mutters under her breath.

…

**To: Blue Ranger**

Lance

Why is my dad picking fights with bratty freshmen in B&N?

**To: Red Ranger**

What.

The.  
Fuck?

**To: Blue Ranger**

See attached

JACKvsTheWorld.mov

**To: Red Ranger**

Today is a great day

Still giving Pidge shit, though

**To: Blue Ranger**

Why?

**To: Red Ranger**

SHE LOST

OUR CHILD

AND YOUR FATHER

IN BARNES AND NOBLE

AND HASN’T FOUND THEM YET

**To: Blue Ranger**

Well make sure she finds them before they get thrown out

…

            They manage to extricate themselves from Jack’s debate, mostly because the acne-riddled college kids ended up leaving in a huff before Jack could start quoting whole passages at them. They’re in the kids’ section now, where, for no clear reason, there is a wooden model railroad setup with a pile of blocks and picture books next to it. Acxa is attempting to rearrange the railroads for maximum efficiency while Jack pages through picture books.

            “You think I could do this kind of thing?” he asks as Acxa delicately engineers a switchback for her train-centric wooden society.

            “What?” she asks, looking up.

            He lifts a picture book in one hand. “Picture books.”

            “Can you write kids’ stories?” she asks. 

            “I dunno,” he says reflectively, “Never really tried.”

            Acxa frowns a little, pondering. “I never read a lot of picture books. Once I figured out chapter books I liked those better.”

            “Why?”

            “They lasted longer,” she says with a shrug, “I couldn’t fit a whole lot of library books in my desk at school so I figured I needed to make it count.”

            Jack gets a funny look on his face – half wistful, half rueful. (Rueful was one of Acxa’s Words of the Day – Keith comes up with a new English word for her every day and writes it on the whiteboard in the kitchen underneath his and Lance’s chore chart scoreboard. And every day Lance comes up with a new Spanish Word of the Day and writes it under Keith’s word. It’s one of those little things that make Acxa think that maybe she has a home here after all).

            Acxa turns back to her trains. The look in Jack’s eyes is making her sad. “My mom wasn’t super good at being a mom,” – or being there, physically or mentally – “so I didn’t really have books when I was with her.” One time she’d brought a book home with her from school, she had been little, six or seven maybe. And her mom and her boyfriend-of-the-minute were home but they were both wasted. Drunk or high or maybe both – Acxa was little, she couldn’t tell. And her mom and the boyfriend were screaming at each other and Axca was hiding behind the bedsheet they’d strung up over a corner of the living room when her mom was sober – _“so you can have your own little room, okay sweets?”_ – when the boyfriend staggered through – her mom must have pushed him. Acxa ducked out of the way, but he grabbed her book and threw it at her mother. And Acxa had watched while her mom, not even noticing what happened or what the book was or where it had come from, grabbed it and ripped it in half along the spine, chucking both halves at the boyfriend.

            Acxa didn’t bring books home after that. Her mother didn’t bring that boyfriend home after that either but it didn’t really make a difference.

            Jack is nodding, though, so maybe Acxa’s sad little story is showing on her face or maybe he’s just the rare type of adult who gets it without being told. “Me neither.”

            “Shit happens,” Acxa says, startling a laugh out of Jack, who ruffles her hair again.

            “Yeah, but shit gets better too,” he says, standing up, “You ready to explore some more?”

            She nods and sets aside her trainyard improvements for the time being. “Lets go.”

…

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

Lance lost our kid

**To: Keith**

I thought your dad had your kid?

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

Lance sent Acxa and Jack to the mall with Pidge

Acxa and Jack were last seen in Barnes and Noble

Pidge doesn’t know where they are

**To Keith:**

Sounds like Pidge lost your kid

And your dad

Shouldn’t you be more concerned about your dad?

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

If you recall, Lance left Pidge in charge

So Lance is responsible for all her failings

That’s how chain of command works

Come on, you know this

**To: Keith**

I know I’m still low-key concerned your father is lost in a mall

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

He survived prison

And our mom

He can survive a mall

**To: Keith**

You say this like you handle malls well

Spoiler alert:

You don’t

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

I think you’re losing sight of the bigger issue here

MY KID

IS LOST

IN A MALL

WITH PIDGE

AND MY DAD

**To: Keith**

Well technically Pidge lost them

So she’s not lost with them anymore

Hence the word… ‘lost’

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

Still Lance’s fault

**To: Keith**

I’m having a hard time here

Are you pissed aobut this?

Are you amused?

Emotions don’t translate well via text

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

Lance is freaking out

I should be more concerned, tbh

But mostly it’s pretty funny

And Acxa’s with my dad, who’s decently reliable

**To: Keith**

“Decently reliable”

You make him sound like a used minivan

**To: Big Brother is Watching You**

Check out this video of my dad owning some idiots:

JACKvsTheWorld.move

**To: Keith**

Oh god he is your father.

...

            They’re in the classics section now. Jack is picking up books and Acxa is trying to remember if Keith’s read them, owns them, or borrowed them from the library then forgot to return them for so long he basically owns them now.

            They aren’t making much progress.

            “He can’t have read this much Jane Austen,” Jack protests.

            “Hey, don’t be a dudebro about it, Austen’s hilarious,” Acxa argues, internatlly facepalming when she realizes she just directly quoted something Farid said to Tony.

            “You like Austen?” Jack says skeptically.

            Acxa sticks her tongue out at him, “I don’t understand all the language, but Keith reads out loud sometimes and he’ll stop and explain why things are funny or the stuff I don’t get. It’s fun.”

            Jacks smiles at that. The small, slightly crooked hook in the corner of his mouth that means he’s feeling a little nostalgic. “His mom loved reading out loud.”

            “Really?”

            “She liked stories, poems, music. She liked it when I read to her.”

             Acxa watches him out of the corner of her eye, feeling almost superstitious about it. Like if she stared him full in the face he’d stop dropping crumbs of information.

            “What kind of poetry did she like?” Acxa asks, running a fingertip over the spines all lined up like standing stones.

            “Her favorite poem was ‘Her Kind’ by Anne Sexton,” he says with utter certainty, like it’s burned into his memory, like this useless fact about her is a grain of sand no amount of time can scrubs out of his brain. “But she liked Walt Whitman and William Carlos Williams and Billy Collins. She hated Edgar Allen Poe.”

            Acxa nods along. She knows Keith doesn’t hate Poe, but reads it with a kind of Tim Burton-esque sense of humor, like all of it is a little absurd and amusing. Lance thinks everything Poe ever wrote is horribly creepy and has no idea why anyone would ever enjoy it. Acxa just thinks it’s all really weird.

            “Maybe find a book of poetry,” Acxa suggests, “And mark all the ones you remember Diana liking. That’s…” sentimental, sappy, could very easily make two grown men cry and then never speak to each other again and then she’ll have ruined the first good thing she’s had in stupid long time? She’s biting her tongue, regretting her words, when a heavy hand comes to rest on the top of her head.

            “Yeah. That could be good,” Jack says and she feels a little burst of warmth in her chest.

            Then she remembers The Mission and sighs. “Well that’s a gift from you, but we still have to find something for Lance and me to give him.”

            “Are you too old for something heartful and crappy? Like a macaroni necklace?”

            Acxa raises one eyebrow in a gesture she first copied from Adela, who definitely copied it from Keith.

            “Yeah, yeah, it was worth a shot,” Jack sighs.

…

**To: Texas Darth Vader**

WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?

PIDGE LOST YOU IN A MALL

WITH MY KID

ANSWER UR PHONE OLD MAN

UUUUUGH

**To: Lance**

Yeah, sorry, Pidge had my phone

She found us

**To: Texas Darth Vader**

OH MY FUCK IT’S BEEN HOURS

...

**To: Lance**

Found ‘em

Pics2ProveIt.jpeg

**To: Pidge**

They found u at Starbucks u potato

**To: Lance**

I figured they’d get hungry eventually

And then I wouldn’t have to trek through Barnes and Noble

**To: Pidge**

You’re never babysitting again.

…

**To: Lance**

You have a few options for Keith’s B-day

**To: Acxa**

YOU’RE ALIIIIIIVE

I WAS SO WORRIED

OMG

**To: Lance**

Oh come on, I was with an adult THE ENTIRE TIME

ANYWAY

**To: Acxa**

DON’T BRUSH OFF MY PARENTAL CONCERN JUST LIKE THAT!!!

**To: Lance**

KEITH

BIRTHDAY

GIFTS

Jack got him poetry and sentimental mom-memories

You can either give him this really weird board game

OR

This Dickens’ biography

**To: Acxa**

I call giving him Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu

**To: Lance**

Cool, I can film his facial expression

**To: All**

You guys do realize this is the family group chat?

I can see all of this.

Sincerely,

Not-Surprised-Honestly-You-Guys,

Keith

...

            Acxa did film their first round of playing Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu, as Keith’s face spasmed its way through pretty much every facial expression and Lance and Shiro progressively lost their minds over the course of the game. She didn’t film Keith receiving his gift from Jack. She didn’t really see any reason to keep a record of Keith’s eyes going glossy with unshed tears as he paged through the book, calloused fingers running over every notation Jack had left for him in the margins.

            That night, sitting in her purple beanbag on the floor (her twelfth birthday gift from Allura and Shiro and hadn’t that been weird – getting gifts and having a party that wasn’t halfhearted singing from her elementary school class) she listened as Keith softly read aloud Whitman poems, Lance leaned against his side, Shiro and Allura bustling in the kitchen, Jack asleep in an armchair.

 

_“The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together.”_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> 'Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu' is a real game and I want to play it, it sounds hilarious. 
> 
> The poem Keith quotes at the end is "Kosmos" by Walt Whitman
> 
> Diana's favorite poem is 'Her Kind' by Anne Sexton, you can hear Sexton herself read it on YouTube and it's amazing. 
> 
> "Are you the new person drawn toward me?" by Whitman is painfully Jack/Diana.
> 
> Keith's favorite poem is "A Glimpse" by Walt Whitman.
> 
> Fic title is from the song 'Panopticon' by Cloud Control.


End file.
